


A Whole Queer County Fair

by bigblackdog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Conversations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Daddy Kink, love letter to arizona, sensitive topics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:04:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigblackdog/pseuds/bigblackdog
Summary: Two queer Mexican kids talking, having sex, and feeling their feelings in Arizona.





	A Whole Queer County Fair

**Author's Note:**

> you know when sometimes you sit down to practice writing conversations because you don't really know what real people talk about and then some daddy kink sneaks in and well, you might as well post it because you're trying to agonize less about things being perfect?

Remus is still wearing his sweater when he steps out of campus services into the heat. His desk is right underneath an air conditioning vent and campus services, much like every building on campus, overcompensates for the heat with continuous chilly air conditioning. He stands in the sun letting his nose and fingers warm up before pulling off his sweater.

It’s nearly October but the heat is holding out this year. It was 112 today. Remus heads around to the back of the building, taking a shortcut to the wide sidewalk that passes by some concrete dormitories from the 70s and a long row of date palms.

Remus texts Sirius when he gets to the Art Buildings. He knows where Sirius’ studio is and that the door is open but he feels like an interloper on this part of campus and anyway, things with Sirius are new. Remus doesn’t think they’re at that stage. Or maybe he just likes Sirius to come and fetch him. Watching Sirius walk up to him, tall and impossibly handsome and knowing he won’t stop until he’s standing toe to toe with Remus and reaching his fingers out to touch. Like the first time three weeks ago, looking up from a beer he wasn’t enjoying at one of Lily’s art grad get togethers and seeing Sirius moving toward him.

“You know you could just come in,” Sirius says. He smells like sawdust and cigarettes.

Remus makes a noncommittal noise and touches his fingertips to Sirius’ arm, feeling the fine layer of gritty sawdust that's always coating his skin. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says, slowly and indulgently. “Hello.”

“Hi hello,” Remus repeats, smiling. It’s stupid, this shy thing they’re doing. Stupid and so so good Remus’ fingers are tingling.

 “Come on.” Sirius tugs his hand gently and they walk past the tall art buildings and across a small parking lot to a squat building enclosing a patch of cement with a small concrete picnic table littered with cigarette butts and the left over edges of spray painting from 30 years of projects.

 Sirius yanks open the metal door to the woods studio, and it scraps over the misshapen door jamb. His studio is to the left of the assortment of heavy machinery Remus understands chops things in various ways and makes him scared for Sirius’ fingers. The wood shop is empty right now, the studio hours Sirius supervises in the interest of protecting undergrads' fingers are over.

 His work table is haphazardly covered in tracing paper and empty coffee cups.

“What’re you working on?”

“I hardly fucking know,” Sirius says with a smile. He waves his hand around in a loose circle. “It’s kinda a mess.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

Sometimes Remus comes over here to find Sirius compulsively rolling cigarettes and trembling from the quad dirty chai he drank for lunch. Today doesn’t seem very messy. He tentatively lifts the edge of a sheet of tracing paper close to him, but it doesn’t reveal Sirius’ current project.

Sirius slides his body between Remus and the table, his large hands rub up and down Remus’ sides and Remus tries not to completely melt when he rests them just underneath Remus’ ribs and presses like he’s trying to memorize the shape of that spot. Sirius’ hands are really, very good hands. Sensitive and seeking and capable. Remus spends his day typing and occasionally angrily jabbing at Xerox buttons. Sirius holds yet undetermined wooden things in his hands, carefully wielding swiss made carving tools that Remus has watched him sharpen and oil.

“How was work?”

“Oh, um…” Remus runs summer camps for gifted middle schoolers. They come to campus for a few weeks and stay in dorms and learn about dodecahedrons and scholarships. Some of them are kids from Yuma like him, with parents who consider college an absurd and naive dream. He likes being with these kids, but camp is just six weeks in summer and so for most of the year Remus sits behind a desk trying to find something to do. “I, um, I looked up the application requirements for a phd in english today.”

“Here?”

 “Yeah. My mom would kill me if I moved away.”

 The shop door opens with a metallic screech and someone stomps in talking on the phone loudly. It’s Sirius’ studio mate, Dan. Sirius leans forward and slides the curtain over his doorway shut. “I fucking hate him, Remus, I really do.”

Dan hangs up with a last, “Cool bro, yeah,” and Remus tries to stifle his laughter at Sirius rolling his eyes.

“He’s just such a fucking bro,” Sirius whispers.

“There are actually worse things to be.”

Dan starts playing music from his studio and upon hearing the first few notes Sirius looks ready to pitch a fit.

“Always this fake folk bullshit. All the time Remus. These sad white boys singing about trying to be brave. Remember when folk music was about going on strike?”

Remus laughs. “Do you?”

“Are you hungry? Let’s get out of here. The Phoenician?”

“No Princess is way better.”

“Is that the place with the kinda pushy waitress?”

“On Priest. Yeah.”

“I love her. I’m driving?”

“Yeah I biked today.”

“It’s too hot for that shit Remus.”

“It’s cooling down. Practically sweater weather.”

“You’re actually a lizard person. I’m convinced.”

Sirius rants about Dan all the way to the car. “God Remus, it’s his whole thing! The like, sensitive folk music, that’s, you know, actually devoid of any real feeling. And his whole like, small town America craft aesthetic. He made a fucking table. He brought a table in to critique yesterday. Not like, altered or emphasized in any way. Ok, he just wants to make furniture, which like, fine, go make furniture. Stop wasting my time in critique.”

“Careful. You’re starting to sound like an art elitist. What would Lily say about you disparaging craft?” They get in the car and Remus nudges an empty Takis bag with his toe, spilling bright red chili lime powder onto the floor of the car. Sirius doesn’t notice and probably wouldn’t care.

“No— no this is totally different. Lily uses the history of women making textiles to _say something._ If he brought in a table and said something about like, class and the western art museum hegemony and colonialism, I’d be like, cool fucking table _bro_ . But he tried to like, lie his way through some vague bullshit about stability. And I _know_ he was lying because I heard him say so on the phone."

“Ok but… Isn’t that still demanding that he present meaning in ways that are sanctioned by the institution?”

“Ugghhhh,” Sirius groans. “You're so reasonable. But couldn’t he still own that? I made this table, in a way that’s pleasing to me, and I’m not caving to institutional pressures to present and defend its capital M Meaning. Don’t fucking lie. This is why my undergrads think it’s like, embarrassing to say their art means something. Because assholes like him ruin it for everyone by like, cheapening the process.”

“Cheapening the process?”

“Yeah, like— ok, people say all the time like, “I’ll just make some shit up.” Like writing papers and showing up to critique. I’ll just make something up. And like, that’s what we’re doing here. We’re all making shit up, that’s literally the artistic process, you’re making something, and you, in the process of making that thing, assign meaning to it, and critique is like, figuring out how to to do that more or less successfully, based on like, what registers with other people as meaningful, what signs they recognize as signs for a particular meaning. Right? And there’s a way to do that— make shit up— with integrity and a way to do it that cheapens that integrity and makes my freshman say shit like everything is art. Everything _is not_ art.”

“So, go ahead and make shit up but care about it?”

“Yes. That’s all I’m asking. And like, ok, tell me if I sound like an institutionalized asshole, but, if you have absolutely no interest in participating in that process or critiquing or subverting it, why go through an mfa program? Why not go, I don't know, intern with Amish furniture makers?”

“Not as many undergrads to swoon over him.”

Sirius laughs.

“But, actually, by not giving a shit isn’t he still subverting that process? And all the more so because directly challenging it would make his work, in a roundabout way, primarily about a process he doesn’t enjoy. You’re still asking him to use the tools of the institution to justify subverting it.”

 “You’re giving him way too much credit.” Sirius turns the ignition off and turns in his seat to look at Remus. He looks delighted that Remus is defending Dan, his expression a little mischievous and fond and Remus smiles back at him.

"You know what I think actually annoys me about Dan?"

"What?"

"It's that he's a straight white guy and in a couple years he's gonna sell those goddamn tables for thousands of dollars in Brooklyn."

Remus laughs. "Yeah. And the emotionally shallow music— that’s despicable.”

Sirius smiles wide. “I like you,” he says. “Come here,” he says soft and indulgent, leaning across the console. They kiss in front of the pink plastic figurine of St. Jude on the dashboard— “The patron saint of hopeless cases,” Sirius had said. The air in the car becomes hot and stuffy in a matter of moments, the low sun slanting sharply in through the windshield. It’s perfect, Remus thinks, grabbing a fistful of the thin white tee shirt Sirius is wearing, like he’s fucking Mexican James Dean. Sirius pulls away, panting hot breaths against Remus’ lips and says “God it’s fucking broiling.”

“Yeah,” Remus whispers, basking in the warmth of Sirius’ breath and the hot air so thick it feels like it’s pulsing.

Sirius leans forward again, just a brief gentle kiss, before he says, “Lizard person,” like he’s proved it once and for all and gets out of the car.

It’s not any cooler outside the car, the black pavement still radiating the day’s heat even though the sun is almost setting. Remus watches Sirius walk across the parking lot, tall and broad and his long hair pulled up off his neck. If Remus’ abuela was still alive she’d say he looked like George Clooney but that’s only because Remus’ uela said that about anyone she thought was handsome. Remus’ mom said Sirius looks like Elvis Crespo, which she meant as a compliment but Remus thinks Sirius is way better looking than Elvis Crespo and she only said that because they both have long hair and maybe in the back of her mind Suavemente was playing. There is something accurate about the Suavemente comparison. He looks like he would slowly and tenderly fuck you all afternoon. Remus would like to find out.

The pushy waitress is there and tells them to sit anywhere. Really she’s not pushy— it’s the same as Remus’ tias saying “Sit down mijo, I’ll make you a plate,” and absolutely piling meat on it because it’s unfathomable that someone wouldn’t want to eat their weight in carnitas; that Remus prefers to eat vegetarian is inconsequential. It’s a kind of aggressive caring. Only, the waitress tells Sirius the lamb kebab is better when he tries to order chicken shawarma. Sirius shrugs and goes with it and Remus wonders what it would be like to take him home, how he'd handle Remus' tias

Sirius grew up in California and his parents are both second gen and, he says “basically white.” Remus thinks a lot about the different ways they grew up and _identity,_ that pithy catchall, because Remus is just half--his dad is white-- but his dad was never there and Remus’ Mexican mother and tias and abuela were. But Remus “passes.” No one asks Remus, “where are you from?” or, “what are you?” the way they ask Sirius with his tan skin and thick black hair. Remus thinks a lot about what “counts,” whether or not _he_ counts and if he can stop fumbling for an answer when it comes up and just say he’s latino.

Remus says this to Sirius, sitting underneath the pretty metal and colored glass lanterns hung over the cracked and peeling black vinyl booths.

“Right yeah. I was just talking about this with Lily. She thinks I should apply to more latino calls for work, put my stuff in with the contemporary latino artist shows. Apparently there’s a chicano cultural center downtown.”

“You don’t want to?”

 “I don’t know,” Sirius says, fiddling with the empty straw paper on the table. “I feel like all the contemporary latino/chicano shows I see, especially here, have a certain visual language and a certain position on a certain kind of experience I don’t relate to. Like, there’s a lot of work about the border and like, Dia de los Muertos skulls and that deck of cards. What’s that card game called?”

“Loteria.”

“Yeah. I think it’s different in LA. But here it’s about a certain kind of Mexican-American experience.”

“That’s probably why Lily thinks you should apply. Broadening what’s understood as a Chicano experience.”

 “I don’t know. I mean yeah, I get that. But I’d feel like I was, I don’t know, taking advantage. Using an identity I don’t really relate to to get my work into places. It’d feel a little dirty to me. Using diversity to gain popularity and patting myself on the back for it.”

 “Like you think it would be some kind of liberal performativity for you to submit your work to latino and chicano themed shows?” 

“Yes?”

“But you are actually latino.”

“Minorities aren’t automatically excused from liberal performativity.”

“God, isn't that the truth," Remus says. "But isn’t the work that you make about your experience a representation of a latino experience, by virtue of being latino and making work?”

“I don’t know. I mean, my experience of being Mexican was pretty much white middle class America and we don't need to see more white middle class America.”

“But that just feels like being told your life wasn't shitty enough to qualify as latino."

"No, it's just like, being aware of privilege."

"You can be aware of your privilege and still not exclude yourself from the category. You still count even though you grew up in Silicon valley eating soy-rizo."

“Soy-rizo is delicious.”

“I don’t disagree. Do you see what I mean though?"

Sirius smiles at him sadly. “Yeah. You want to go to the movies and see two Mexican men fall in love without it being about their being poor disenfranchised Mexicans.”

Remus swallows the sudden lump in his throat, but his voice still sticks a little. “Yeah.” He doesn’t know if it’s from the ache Sirius has uncovered at not seeing that, or hearing Sirius saying “two Mexican men fall in love,” sitting across from him at this table with his full pink lips and his smart, discerning mind. He looks down at his falafel and then back up, smiling wryly, “But how could it possibly not be about them being Mexican. We’re not even real Mexicans and we still can’t talk about anything else.”

Sirius laughs, and stretches his hand across the table. “Do you want baklava? I want baklava.”

Remus thinks about Sirius sucking dripping honey off his fingers and nods.

Sirius comes back from the counter in the small attached grocery store with two honey soaked baklava on a white paper plate.

“I got walnut.”

“I like walnut.”

“Good. I’m glad I’m not finding out you have a walnut allergy right now.” 

Sirius does indeed suck the honey from the tips of his fingers, looking enormously satisfied. Then he folds his arms and leans forward on the table, almost conspiratorially.

“So the reason Lily’s on me to submit to latino shows is because Susan Atkins’ show went up this week in the grad gallery.”

“And?”

“And Lily’s pissed. She went to the defense and says Sue’s committee went easy on her about cultural appropriation.”

“What kind of work is it?”

“I haven't been yet, I don't really know, but it's stuff about immigration.”

“What'd Lily say?"

“Honestly, I can’t remember how Lily put it. There’s definitely something there that should at least be interrogated by her committee.”

“Hmm,” Remus says and doesn’t say anymore until he’s finished his baklava.

 

“I've been thinking lately,” Remus says slowly when they’re leaving the restaurant, Susan Atkins and Sirius not applying to chicano shows and Remus not being in a grad program coalescing into a coherent into something.

Sirius waits and Remus is grateful for the time to gather his thoughts driving back to campus. He looks out the window at the palm trees dark against the hazy orange glow of the sky and block after block of strip malls with peeling brown plaster.

"So… I've been thinking lately about how to understand yourself as a part of these systems. Things like generational poverty and white privilege and maybe identity politics, I guess? I'm not sure. How to _really_ understand how these complex and overarching systems work within your own life."

Sirius hums that he's listening and Remus goes on. "I think, when I was younger I thought of all these problems in a really personal way. Like, my dad left us because I was sick all the time or because my mom wanted him to go to church, the reasons were about who were as people. Do you know what I mean? And then, in college, it was the first time I started to think of these things as larger cultural issues. And it was kind of a relief, it took the sting out of things. Like, my dad didn't leave us because of who we were it was because one in five latino mothers is a single parent. He left because of the _patriarchy_. Do you see what I mean?"

"I think so, yeah."

 "Yeah. So then, I'm thinking of my life and my _identity_ in terms of all these impersonal systems: generational poverty, patriarchy, systematic racism, the achievement gap and… getting a little lost? I guess?

"I think because thinking in terms of these big systems, then identity also gets systemized? institutionalized? I don't know what I'm trying to say… I guess I've just been feeling like maybe it should be a little more personal?"

“Ok, yeah. So maybe… Susan Atkins is certainly benefitting from systems of privilege but she’s also maybe a real person with genuinely empathetic feelings about immigration."

"Right, yeah. And I'm a queer Mexican kid and my mom is a waitress but I'm also… I don't know," Remus laughs. "I think I lost my point."

“God you’re so—“ Sirius say, leaning in to kiss Remus at a stoplight, quick and hard before the light changes.

Sirius pulls into the lot closest to campus services where Remus' bike is parked. “I think you should come home with me tonight.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, definitely,” Sirius says, nuzzling his nose along Remus’ jaw.

“I don’t have my toothbrush.”

“I’m pretty sure I have an extra.”

“And if it turns out you’re wrong?”

“Then I’ll kiss your sour mouth tomorrow morning.”

“Gross.”

 “Come on, come over Remus.” 

“Oh I’m definitely coming over. That was never in question.”

Sirius huffs a small laugh against Remus’ neck and whispers, “God I can’t wait to have you in my bed.”

Remus takes a deep breath, overwhelmed with how suddenly turned on he is as Sirius starts the car again. He reaches over to grab Remus' hand, kissing the back of it and accelerating out of the empty parking lot.

 

Sirius and James rent a two bedroom guest house in Maple-Ash. The main house belongs to friends of James' parents and even though the guest house is tiny it's much nicer than Remus' apartment, with terracotta floor tiles and diamond paned windows. Sirius guides Remus quickly through it with a gently insistent hand back to his room and shuts the door behind him. It smells like him— sawdust and cigarette smoke.

Sirius leans against the door for a moment, watching Remus stand in the middle and take it all in. A bookcase, a sanded and finished crate turned on its side for a bedside table, a bed with the covers shoved to the bottom like Sirius gets too hot at night.

Then Sirius is on him, taking Remus’ face between his hands and tipping it up to kiss him. Sirius arches over him, holding him firmly and Remus is in heaven. He sways and then stumbles into Sirius’ body, pliant and melting, and smooths his hands lightly over Sirius’ chest and shoulders and back again. Sirius covers his mouth, biting and sucking with all the satisfaction he showed sucking honey off his fingers at the restaurant.

He pulls away and Remus tries to follow but Sirius is still holding his head, hand snug and immovable at the base of Remus’ neck and he actually fucking whimpers. “Oh my god,” Remus says, eyes closed, “Fuck me, oh my god please fuck me.” Remus’ eyes fly open as he realizes he’s said. “I mean, if you want. If that’s what you want.”

Sirius smiles at him and leans his forehead against Remus’. “Yeah, that’s what I want.”

“Are you sure? Because we could do something else. Anything.”

Sirius pulls back and looks at him, no doubt seeing Remus looks fucking wrecked already. “You don’t have to backtrack,” he says. Remus tries to hide his face in Sirius’ shoulder but Sirius is still holding him.

“It’s hard,” Remus says, “It’s hard to say what I want.”

“I know,” Sirius whispers, guiding Remus’ head to the crook of his shoulder. He combs through Remus’ hair soothingly. “I know,” he says again quietly. “I’ll tell you what I want.” Sirius brushes his lips against Remus’ temple. “It’s not hard for me to say it,” Sirius is still speaking softly, right into Remus’ ear, still combing through his hair gently. “I like feeling like I’m the best fuck you’ve ever had because I gave you everything you wanted.”

Remus laughs shakily. “Are you telling me you’re an honest to god service top?”

Sirius laughs too, but low and smooth. “I don’t know, maybe. It's not all generosity. I think a good bit of it is ego. And sometimes I like to be a bit rough.”

Remus’ breathe catches. “You can,” he says. “You can be rough with me.”

Sirius hums and slides one hand across Remus’ back to cup his ass and haul him closer.

Remus hides his face a little more and says, “You can push me around or… or hold me down. And…”

“And?” Sirius prompts, firmly massaging Remus’ asscheek.

“And um. Biting, scratching, hair pulling, stuff like that.”

The hand still carding through Remus’ hair tugs gently, and then a little harder and tingles rush over his scalp. He nods his face into Sirius’ chest. “Yeah, and… harder.”

"Come here," Sirius says, pushing Remus over to the bed.

Then Sirius does exactly what he said and gives Remus the best fuck of his life. He sucks and fingers Remus with radiant enthusiasm, like he could spend the next hour just sucking on Remus' neck, like fingering lube into Remus is fucking lavish. His hands sliding all over Remus' body feel attentive, the same as when Sirius is handling something in the studio, a careful and considering touch.

“Fuck I knew you’d be like this," Remus says a little dazed.

“Like what?”

"So fucking-- _nngh,_ " Remus cuts off as Sirius slips another finger in him. “Oh my god. Fuck me. I want you to fuck me.” 

Remus rolls over onto his stomach and Sirius kneels over Remus' body and slides his cock in slowly, so slowly. Then he slides his arms underneath Remus and hauls him up so he's sitting on Sirius' cock and he's so turned on by being fucking manhandled that his head lolls back onto Sirius' shoulder and he just _moans_ while Sirius fucks him, one strong arm holding Remus to his chest.

Sirius bites his ear and pulls his hair and leaves five long scratches all the way up Remus' thigh. He doesn't let Remus bring himself off, makes him wait, he makes Remus sit on his cock tells him to clench his asshole around him, whispering things like "Yeah, milk my fucking cock Remus, you feel so good, fuck yourself on my cock," and Remus does until his legs burn and then Sirius fucks him some more, fucks him until he's sobbing a little with how good it feels and comes so hard it feels like he's still shivering through the aftershocks fifteen minutes later.

They sit with their legs tangled up and Sirius leaning next to the window so he can blow his cigarette smoke outside. It's still hot and they sit totally naked, sheets still bunched up at the end of the bed and Sirius slides his hand all the way up Remus' thigh, just holding Remus there with a kind of proprietary awe.

"Holy shit," Remus says, not for the first time.

Sirius smiles, looking pretty proud of himself, which is fine because _holy shit_.

"It kind of seemed like…" Remus starts, then reconsiders.

"Like what?" Sirius asks.

"When you were telling me to um, milk your cock. That’s um. I mean you’re sort of... stern and, well, it's all sort of indulgent."

Sirius looks at him sideways. "Yeah?"

“Don’t you— don’t you think that’s kind of, um, a daddy vibe.”

Sirius inhales on his cigarette and exhales slowly before answering. “Yeah,” he says and the simplicity of it feels cryptic to Remus.

“Just, you know, wanting to take care of someone so much but it’s not… very soft. I mean, I like it. Obviously. You being--” Remus waves his hand around, as if to say _all of it._ “Oh my god are you going to make me say it?” 

"Well, if you wanna say it during sex it'll be good practice," Sirius says.

Sirius sounds a little teasing now and that pleased smile is back so Remus takes a deep breath and says, “If you wanted to be my daddy I think I’d be pretty in to that. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes.” Sirius inhales and exhales again, then stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray on the windowsill. “So just now, for example, you would’ve liked it if I told you, maybe, to milk daddy’s cock.”

Remus swallows and nods. They’re doing this, then, he thinks a little hysterically. “And to… to be your good boy.”

“Be a good boy and milk daddy’s cock?” Sirius asks, leaning forward and looking into Remus' eyes intently. Remus, pinned, nods again. “Yeah,” he breathes. “That um, that would be good.”

Sirius rolls them over and pulls Remus' leg up over his side, lining them up and lubing them up and they rock slowly together, slow and steady, with the sound of the cicadas and Sirius whispering dirty things until Remus comes again.

Afterward Sirius cleans him up and hugs him close, laying underneath just the sheet together. Sirius keeps kissing his forehead and smoothing his hand up and down Remus' back and he thinks he would cry if he wasn't so worn out.

"So are you going to apply to a lit program?"

"I don't know," Remus hedges. "Maybe. What're you working on right now?"

Sirius laughs softly. "That's fair. Look, I know we just started dating so I'm not telling you what to do, but it seems like you really want it. And you should have what you want. Like, that's ok. To get the things you want."

Remus tilts his head up to kiss Sirius. Because Sirius wants him to have the things he wants, which is much more satisfyingly _right_ argument than all the things Remus has been thinking about the achievement gap and how capable he is and what his mom thinks about student loans.

"What are you working on?" he asks Sirius softly.

Sirius ducks his head and tells him he's been reading about camp and thinking about queering Americana and he wants to make a queer kissing booth, which he's a little embarrassed about but kind of wants to lean into the camp and silliness of it all and make a whole queer county fair, art shouldn't be so serious all the time, he says.

They talk softly together until they just can't anymore, and Sirius says he has to teach in the morning and Remus says he'll make him eggs and soy-rizo for breakfast and then they say, ok really, we have to go to sleep now.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks, as always, for reading. it's really very kind.


End file.
